New Men’s Rights hero: the Cleveland bus driver who punched and choked a female passenger

The bus driver winding up for the punch; the passenger’s arms are by her side.

Men’s Rights Activists have a new hero: a Cleveland bus driver who punched and choked a belligerent female passenger who had apparently refused to pay her fare.

The top post in the Men’s Rights subreddit at the moment, with more than 500 upvotes, links to a petition urging the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority to reinstate the bus driver, Artis Hughes, who was suspended after video of the incident leaked out. (See videos here and here.) According to the petition,

As a bus driver, mr. Hughes was lied to, insulted, threatened and eventually attacked by one of the passagers. He was clearly justified in striking back. Were he to suffer any negative consequences to his employment as a result of defending himself and striking back, this would set a disasterous precedent: he and other employees would legitimately believe that their workplace expects them to put up with harrassment, and that they will lose their jobs if they choose to stand up for themselves. …

As well as being a bus driver, mr. Hughes is a man, and [Shidea N. Lane, the passenger] is a woman. We continue to live in a world in which some people see fit to scold men for fighting back against the women who abuse them. After mr. Hughes struck ms. Lane, a woman could be heard protesting about it, saying “That’s a [censored] female”. Mr. Hughes responded by saying: “I don’t care. You want to be man? I’m going to treat you like a man!” This is a healthy attitude: if men refuse to strike back, fearing that the law will favour their female abusers over them, we create an environment in which women can harrass and victimize men with impunity. Instead, a man’s decision to fight back against a woman should be respected.

It is for these reasons – the fact that the bus driver was the real victim and was justified in hitting back; that he and other bus drivers should not fear the legal consequences of responding to attacks by passagers; and that men in general should not fear the legal consequences of responding to attacks by women – that we urge you to reinstate mr. Artis Hughes following the investigation on the incident, and hope that future policies will safeguard him and other bus drivers from legal assault whenever they respond to a passager’s physical assault.

There are a lot of things wrong with this statement, up to and including the spelling. But perhaps most germane to the discussion at hand is the fact that the various videos of the event circulating on YouTube make very clear that Hughes was not acting in self-defense.

Yes, it’s clear from the videos and the police report on the incident that the passenger was acting obnoxiously. And according to witnesses she struck first, spitting on Hughes, pushing him and apparently punching him in the head. (All I saw in the video was her pushing him.) That would be more than enough to charge her with assault, though Hughes declined to press charges.

But after she allegedly assaulted him, she backed off. When Hughes punched and then choked her, he was not defending himself; he was retaliating, and with disproportionate force – his punch literally knocked her to the floor.

In this case, Hughes’ victim was a woman. But what he did would have been equally wrong had he punched a man with similar force.

And as longtime readers here know, in one now-infamous post Paul Elam of A Voice for Men suggested that it would be proper for men abused by their female partners to

beat the living shit out of them. I don’t mean subdue them, or deliver an open handed pop on the face to get them to settle down. I mean literally to grab them by the hair and smack their face against the wall till the smugness of beating on someone because you know they won’t fight back drains from their nose with a few million red corpuscles.

And then make them clean up the mess.

In the wake of the bus incident, a number of commenters in the Men’s Rights subreddit reacted to Hughes’ assault on the young woman with something close to glee. (Click on any of the yellow comments to see them in context; they’re all from different parts of the thread .)

True, some suggested that the response was disproportionate, but they tended to get a much less enthusiastic response from the regulars than those reveling in the punch:

And MRAs wonder why some people describe their movement, such as it is, as “the abusers lobby.”

@ special case joe- Eat a bag of dicks, asshole- had you been bothering to read the fucking posts you may have noticed I wondered if the dude was scared in the first place and thought he had the rage in the second. So, no, the manboobzians are not hiveminded, go to hell, and may all the shittiness of my day be transferred onto you.

You all probably think the Federal Cock Reserve is some sort of government agency, when in fact it’s a private corporation controlled by the Rothchilds, the Rockefellers, and the cryogenically preserved brains of John Holmes and Colonel Sanders.

I remember the days when Barbara Walters and Anderson Cooper were real journalists. Its kinda sad how they went into daytime tv hosting.

But to tangent on the topic (or off the topic) I was once slapped by my ex. Just once. That was the point where I gave her a shpiel that hitting isn’t ok. The fact that I had to do this, recently, to an otherwise socially normal person should indicate a problem.

I know it sounds just as condescending to say “teach men not to rape” as it does “teach women to not initiate violence” but it looks like we have to do that.

Those exact words too. Learn to not initiate violence. You can scream yourself hoarse with every epithet you can and thats never an excuse to lay a finger on another person. But the second you initiate physical violence, it gets bad.

With this specific incident, I don’t know if he was or wasn’t justified in any force. With the MacDonalds employee however, I think he was totally justified. He just came out of jail, and two people triggered his “fight or flight” response.

And, specifically to Futrelle, I don’t think a fight has to be matched with proportionate force. Cops have a responsibility to do so, but they have legal authority, training, armor, and weapons. The rest of us see a threat, and we owe it to ourselves to not have our brains splattered over the sidewalk because someone else decided to start a fight.

Nope, your use of force still has to be proportionate to the threat. You can’t shoot someone who slaps you. And in this case, I’m pretty sure that uppercutting someone (who is standing back with her arms at her side, and who is much smaller) hard enough to knock her to the ground, is not using proportionate force.

Self Defense

Individuals may use self defense to protect themselves from bodily harm or death. The force used in self defense must be proportionate to the force used on the individual and only to stop the threat of force.

If someone is on your property, and you don’t have a duty to retreat, you can shoot them. If you tried to retreat, and they followed you, again you have the right to shoot. If they have anything in their hand and they’re charging, its justifiable homicide. Cops are given carte blanche for this, because someone at a sprint can cover 21 feet faster than an officer can unholster a gun. There are a lot of exceptions and rules, and it varies from state to state.

So the legal case of justifiable use of force is up in the air to me on this one. I don’t know the state laws there. I don’t know what a jury would say about it either.

Now, if you’re talking morally justified use of force, I can see your point. I still disagree with you though. Your first priority is to yourself, and not to the person attacking you. If he/she decided to initiate violence, then that person should suffer the outcome of that decision, and not the person being attacked. You don’t want to be a martyr for someone elses stupidity.

Whats the correct proportion anyways? You can only hit back for the number of times you’ve been hit? You can only retaliate in kind? I think minor escalation in a violent situation is entirely justifiable.

If someone is on your property, and you don’t have a duty to retreat, you can shoot them. If you tried to retreat, and they followed you, again you have the right to shoot.

That’s mighty US-centric of you. There are other countries in the world where shooting someone is not considered an appropriate response. The USA is an outlier when it comes to violence. It is not something you should be boasting about.

Whats the correct proportion anyways? You can only hit back for the number of times you’ve been hit? You can only retaliate in kind? I think minor escalation in a violent situation is entirely justifiable.

You can only hit back if you are currently under attack. If the person has stopped attacking, you don’t get to hit back. This is not rocket science.

I know it sounds just as condescending to say “teach men not to rape” as it does “teach women to not initiate violence” but it looks like we have to do that.

Now you get to cite your sources showing that women comprise 90% of slapping perpetrators, or you’re going to look mighty foolish for having compared these two things.

I’d also ask you to consider whether half the population lives in fear of being slapped and must plan their lives around that fear and is getting bombarded with “how not to get slapped” messages and blamed when they do get slapped, but I’m not in the mood for any “but ALL VIOLENCE is bad!” false equivalencies today. Suffice it to say that your comparison is idiotic and just a wee bit offensive.

Diogenes: But to tangent on the topic (or off the topic) I was once slapped by my ex. Just once. That was the point where I gave her a shpiel that hitting isn’t ok. The fact that I had to do this, recently, to an otherwise socially normal person should indicate a problem.

Yes, that you had to do that indicates that the two of you had a problem, which is that she hit you.

The next graf doesn’t follow: I know it sounds just as condescending to say “teach men not to rape” as it does “teach women to not initiate violence” but it looks like we have to do that.

In the first case I don’t think it sounds condescending to say we need to teach men not rape; esp. since it is (as you, and your ilk, pretend to not know) a counter to the present system which is to “teach women to not get raped. Sort of like teaching people to not get hit by drunk drivers.

In the second, there is no vast number of men being put in hospital, nor killed, by the women who abuse them. It’s still a gendered problem.

And here is where you, continue, to prove what an incredible naïf you are.

And, specifically to Futrelle, I don’t think a fight has to be matched with proportionate force. Cops have a responsibility to do so, but they have legal authority, training, armor, and weapons. The rest of us see a threat, and we owe it to ourselves to not have our brains splattered over the sidewalk because someone else decided to start a fight.

Why just to Dave? is he the only one talking about it? No.

Second cops get to use disproportionate force all the time. Google, “taser deaths” for some examples.

Third, the last sentence contradicts your first. A person is allowed to not “have their brains splattered over the sidewalk”. That’s proportionate response.

If proportionate response; and cessation when the threat is stopped, weren’t the case then any time someone shoved you, you’d be allowed to kill them.

The law (pesky little thing, I know) doesn’t allow(stupidities such as Florida as notable exceptions) slaps to be met with deadly response.

If you have any questions, I suggest you read/contact Marc MacYoung. He’ll be glad to set you straight, since he makes a decent living testifying in cases where someone thought being slugged gave them the right to kick the shit out of the slugger.

So the legal case of justifiable use of force is up in the air to me on this one.

Of course it is: A man hit a woman.

Now, if you’re talking morally justified use of force, I can see your point. I still disagree with you though. Your first priority is to yourself, and not to the person attacking you. If he/she decided to initiate violence, then that person should suffer the outcome of that decision, and not the person being attacked. You don’t want to be a martyr for someone elses stupidity.

That, my boy, is the argument of the Hatfields and McCoys. If you hit me, and you stop. You have no more intent to attack me, and I decide you’ve not gone far enough away I can (per your argument) hit you until you can’t move, “To protect myself”.

You, on the other hand, have a quite reasonable idea that I am attacking you (because, in fact, I am). That’s why the law says the threat must be present, and active.

Whats the correct proportion anyways? You can only hit back for the number of times you’ve been hit? You can only retaliate in kind? I think minor escalation in a violent situation is entirely justifiable.

You can defend yourself so long as the attack is ongoing. Some things (the presence of a weapon) may allow for a greater level of response; so long as the person has the weapon and the apparent intent to use it, but the loss of intent means the loss of right of response. A person who backs up, even if holding a knife, a bottle, a baseball bat, is no longer an active threat.

You have to stop.

It’s really very simple.

BTW, I notice you have decided to let the “Adrian Chen is trying to impose a reign of silencing terror on the creeps of the world” argument drop. I assume it’s because you are admitting defeat, not that you are pretending you can move on as if it didn’t happen.

And Again I apologise. I confused you, and Steel/Varpole/Butthorn. It’s not just that I’m rushing, on my way to work, but that you are both fairly similar in the nature of your waffling qualifiers to excuse bad behavior by men; while insisting that women who fail to meet some impossible standard are wretched, and deserving of what they get.

He’s actually doing a bang up job of showing just what is wrong with honour culture. If you go around thinking violence is ok to defend your honour, it is easier to confuse retaliation, or even pre-emptive violence, with self-defense.

The rest of us see a threat, and we owe it to ourselves to not have our brains splattered over the sidewalk because someone else decided to start a fight.

Oh, so now he was in danger of being killed? Or is this a vague reference to George Zimmerman? Because as time goes by there is increasing evidence that Zimmerman is lying through his teeth about what happened that night and he just flat out murdered a guy who had the temerity to walk through his neighborhood while being black.

No, nwoslave, that part equals woman’s bad behavior. The bad behavior from the man came when after she had backed away he hit her, and with far more force than she had used to boot. Everyone here has agreed she was being an asshole, but that does not justify what the guy did.

@Myoo
“Everyone here has agreed she was being an asshole, but that does not justify what the guy did.”

Well lucky us. Women like you are psychic and know that the women wouldn’t just start up again with the screaming, spitting, hitting and choking. poor little victim was just blowing off a bit of steam. Let’s give her a box of chocolates. She’s a victim.
————-
Nice opening line to the article, Dave.

“the Cleveland bus driver who punched and choked a female passenger.”

By the sound of it, you’d think the delicate waif was sitting there reading the gospel and a bad man up and waffled her. How about the truth as the title instead?

@nwoslave
I’m not a woman, dude, and if she started up again with the spitting, the guy could spit right back, if she started again with the hitting and choking then he could use a proportional amount of force to defend himself. Escalating only shows him to be a violent asshole.

Owly – she assaulted him. Everyone here knows that; nobody is defending what she did. The point is that she had backed off and THEN he attacked her. It’s not like he went over and made her get off the bus: he knocked her off her feet. Even if he’d been defending himself (which he wasn’t) it was totally disproportionate. But he wasn’t: he was starting over and escalating. He lost any claim to be an innocent victim at that point.

This is why service employees are instructed to not engage problem customers and to involve the police/LP rather than directly interfering with a thief. This idiot could bring a massive lawsuit against his company for this and I can’t believe he wasn’t fired. Not only was his conduct completely unprofessional but it was above and beyond what would be considered adequate force to subdue an attacker (which she no longer was at the point in which he chose to beat and choke her).

This woman was completely out of line, no doubt there, and I’m not justifying her actions, but I’m sick of hearing people justify his.

If I ever got on this man’s bus I would turn around and walk right back off. I wouldn’t feel safe with this type of guy behind the wheel knowing that he lacks self control.

It’s like, for all of us who have been in customer service, we’ve all had that moment where we wanted to smack a customer who was being an unreasonable asshole, but you CAN’T because two wrongs don’t make a right.

And I’m not even touching upon the size difference and the obvious, “I’m gonna put that stupid WOMAN in her place!” mentality this guy had.

And yeah, he blatantly disregarded his company’s SOP. Arguing with a woman to the point which you’re both throwing bows is not worth a two fucking dollar fare. Let the cops handle the theft like you were trained to do.

You idiots should stop with the “she backed off” bullshit.
She should have “backed off” the bus. She had no legal right to even be on it, and her very presence there was a continuing assault – and yes, illegal. He’d have been in his rights to make a citizen’s arrest and use reasonable force to subdue her.

I think she got what she deserved.
And had I walked on the bus and acted the exact same way and got punched in the jaw, I’d have deserved it too. Just to you know, point out that I don’t have a “double standard” based on sex.

And now I’m going off and back to laughing at this place, like I normally do. But hey, Dave may be one-eyed in his criticism, but at least he’s sometimes funny and has something to say. Unlike most of the commenters on his threads.

Calrence: You idiots should stop with the “she backed off” bullshit.
She should have “backed off” the bus. She had no legal right to even be on it, and her very presence there was a continuing assault – and yes, illegal. He’d have been in his rights to make a citizen’s arrest and use reasonable force to subdue her.

How to say this…

You’re wrong.

Mere presence =/= assault. Assault requires an actual physical threat. As to the issue of citizen’s arrest, that depends on the what the nature of the violation is. It might be theft of service. It might be tresspass. It might be some sort of infraction (which is the case in Utah, and Calif.)

Here is the, general, list of requirements to effect a citizens arrest.

1: It must be at least a misdemeanor (so, if Ohio is like Calif. and Utah, no citizens arrest is possible, any attempt to effect one [in Calif, I don’t know the law specific law on that in Utah] is a crime on the part of the person attempting the arrest).

2: The arrest must be announced.

3: The police must be notified as soon as possible.

4: Such force as is needed to restrain the arrested person until the police arrive is allowed.

5: Such force as is required to protect the arrestor is allowed.

So, if he announced the arrest, he had to then call the cops. Closing the doors would have accomplished 4. Unless she presented an active threat, he was not entitled to use any more force.

Pecunium – just picking up on one point – you say “there is no vast number of men being put in hospital, nor killed, by the women who abuse them. It’s still a gendered problem.”

I wonder if you might consider the following: is it possible that as a society we don’t ‘see’ the number of male victims of domestic abuse, because we don’t recognise it?

When men are subject to verbal and emotional abuse we have a tendency to dismiss it as ‘nagging’, or see it as justifiable scolding. Furthermore, women commonly have much greater access to forms of abuse which by any measure are extreme, such as expelling a man from his home and family, and denying, controlling or limiting his relationship with his children, which society does not recognise or describe as ‘abuse’, despite the obvious potential impact on a man’s mental and physical health. Almost all divorces are initiated by women, and in almost all cases research appears to show that abuse, addiction or adultery by the respondent – usually the male partner – are not factors.

Is it perhaps possible that men are disadvantaged by abuse directed at them not being recognised as such? Is it also right that, at least in Britain and the United States, the government actually prohibits funding of research into male victims of domestic abuse?

Could a combination of abuse directed at men not being recognised, and our firm refusal to research or study domestic violence and abuse against men, be a factor in our failure to address the phenomenally high suicide rate amongst divorced and separated men, and the high self-harm and suicide rate amongst men aged 16-55? A rate which has consistently risen for the last 25 years?

Is it further possible that our gender perceptions play a role in this? When we see a woman shouting at a man on the street, don’t we immediately wonder what he’s done to make her angry? When the sexes are reversed, don’t we assume he’s an abuser?

Research into friendship groups amongst high school students by Barbara Leckie, shows that girls are more likely to employ psychological tactics of control such as shunning, alienation, ostracism, deliberate and calculated random exclusions, and spreading of rumors to harass their peers.

Leckie says: “Girls commonly get other kids to gang up on one or more peers as a way of exerting control. Sometimes they incite other children to act out aggressively and sit back to watch the show. They form groups that pick and choose members at random and exclude others without real reason. They form alliances with other social groups in an effort to jockey for popularity and positions of power among peers. All too often the bullying tactics used by girls are brushed off by observers and adults as cruel but normal social interactions. It frequently isn’t recognised as bullying.”

Is it likely that this pattern of behaviour ceases in adulthood? How would this behaviour affect adult relationships?

It reminds me eerily of the bullying I faced in high school. They don’t expect you to react based on what you’ve already put up with.They have the power over you. You’re not supposed to fight back. And then you do.
When all the pain and anger erupts and you explode violently, it’s never about self defence semantics and legalities, it’s a massive FUCK YOU. ENOUGH. LEAVE ME ALONE .HOW DO YOU LIKE IT WHEN I DO IT TO YOU, ASSHOLE? and usually the response at the time, (however delayed it may be) is likely to be in the violence range of the stimuli.
If you’re being shoved around then you snap- grabbing someone and screaming in their face is about right,
If someone is striking you then they’ve dictated your response. You’re going to hit them, and make them feel what you felt.
So the bus driver, is sitting there extremely humilated and hurt, (p.s it’s an extremely awful unfair/helpless feeling when you take an uncalled for punch without retaliating, moreso than any slap or spit)
He wants to respond with a punch of his own, but the fact she’s a woman stops it. She continues the verbal abuse. then bam. We hear him utter the phrase that in his mind justified it. And he punches her with all the fury and humiliation that’s been building up over the past few minutes.
Had she just shoved him or slapped him, then I daresay his response would have been different. Possibly a big shove, possibly nothing.
Trust me, when you’ve been humiliated with a punch in the face by someone you won’t hit back because of your morals ( i.e Not hitting someone weaker than you because they’re intoxicated/ short/ high/ blind/ you’re nonviolent whatever), the feeling of injustice and helplessness burns very brightly, and when your tormentor is still there screaming at you, and you do decide ENOUGH! You’re going to hit them.. pretty hard. (Sorry if I’ve digressed from my main point slightly).

Personally I dislike both parties, but I think a person’s duty should always be to themselves, and whilst he punched her too hard and is probably a little bit sociopathic, a punch is what was called for, because going through life without sticking up for yourself is bloody miserable.
(TL;DR The whole self defence/ escalation argument is almost irrelevant. He wasn’t really defending himself, he was lashing out because he decided he wasn’t going to take the humiliation anymore, and he decided to punch her, because she had punched him, like a million schoolyard instances before this.)

Yes, verbal abuse is a bad thing. I think we all agree with that. Men use it against women too you know. The difference is that a man can leave a woman who is ‘nagging’ him without fearing for his life.

He wasn’t really defending himself, he was lashing out because he decided he wasn’t going to take the humiliation anymore, and he decided to punch her, because she had punched him, like a million schoolyard instances before this.

Also, do you *know* this? Are you psychic or have you read some police report the rest of us haven’t? If this guy has some sort of PTSD then yes, that would be mitigating circumstances. But you can’t just make something up yourself to excuse him. And having PTSD to the point where you attack customers is a perfectly good reason for him to no longer be employed in a public facing role.

Re the “nagging”: perhaps if some men didn’t treat their female partner as an unpaid maid, the nagging might stop. I’m sure they could find some time in between solving the repetitive men’s rights problems in their keyboard activist roles.

Tormented: (TL;DR The whole self defence/ escalation argument is almost irrelevant. He wasn’t really defending himself, he was lashing out because he decided he wasn’t going to take the humiliation anymore, and he decided to punch her, because she had punched him, like a million schoolyard instances before this.)

And what you gloss in the tl;dr is that you are defending his doing it.

The Self-defense argument isn’t irrelevant, because it’s the only justification for the violence which is ethically correct.

Even if we stipulate that the driver had been abused at the hands of others, that doesn’t give him the right to take it out on someone who wans’t posing an actual threat to him.

Geeze you guys, get it through your head, If somebody spits on you and assaults you and they have a vegeygey it’s NOT self defence if you fight back! Just sit there and take it like a man, you know, if she stabs you a few times MAYBE think about raising your voice a little but make sure you comfort her after that.

Citation provided was that of a 2005 grant that explicitly prohibited studies of intimate partner violence regarding male victims of any age, or female victims under 12. (sarcasm on) Therefore, the government clearly thinks that no female under 12 is ever a victim of violence. (sarcasm off)

“Citation provided was that of a 2005 grant that explicitly prohibited studies of intimate partner violence regarding male victims of any age, or female victims under 12. (sarcasm on) Therefore, the government clearly thinks that no female under 12 is ever a victim of violence. (sarcasm off)”

Let me correct that for you:

“Citation provided was that of a 2005 grant that explicitly prohibited studies of intimate partner violence regarding male victims of any age, or female victims under 12. (sarcasm on) Therefore, the government clearly thinks that no female under 12 is ever a victim of violence from an intimate partner. (sarcasm off)”

Well now, because *one* government entity out of the many that the US has prohibited studies on male victims of domestic abuse (well actually just applications for grants for this specific area of study), it means that ALL GOVERNMENTS EVERYWHERE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD prohibit studies into male victims of domestic abuse. It also means that all private entities are prohibited. Because private business can never, not even once, do anything the government does not tell it to do.

And of course Sasha runs away-having to stay and defend zir’s silly assertions would be hard and well we all know trolls hate hard.

Artist Hughes is a pussy. That woman barely touched him and was half his size. The internet is a breeding ground for bitter antisocial weirdos with a chip on their shoulder and an axe to grind . I can’t imagine how bored a group of people must be to start a campaign about the “right” to hit women “back” with insanely disproportionate force. Talk about a cause with no worthy issues at hand.